SOME schools still have not received their free textbooks from the Ministry of Education — weeks away from the end of the school year.
This newspaper has been assured by the Education Minister, Dr Mahendra Reddy, that textbooks were distributed to all schools as part of their commitment to this year’s budget allocation from the Ministry of Finance.
Last week, Dr Reddy said although it took time to distribute textbooks to schools around the country, each school by now should have received all textbooks.
The Fiji Times called schools in the Western, Central, Northern and Eastern divisions following concerns from parents that some schools were still without books.
Twenty schools were contacted in the Central Division, of which six were secondary schools. At least 12 had received all their textbooks, however five of these 12 did not get the amount of textbooks they requested.
Seven schools were without some of the textbooks in various subjects. These schools did not receive maths, elementary science and vernacular textbooks.
One school had not been given a single textbook but made do with printing the textbook e-copy from the Ministry of Education website for its teachers.
In the Western Division, 15 schools were contacted, six were secondary schools. At least three primary schools were without some of their textbooks including elementary science, social studies and English for Year 4, social science and maths for Year 7 and basic science and maths for Year 8. A school received only 80 per cent of the number of textbooks they requested. Three primary schools received all their textbooks although one received its batch late.
For the six secondary schools, only two did not receive all their requested textbooks, which was the basic science textbooks for Year 10 students.
One school said it only received 40 per cent of the number of textbooks. Two schools received all copies in all grades but they were all short in numbers.
In the Eastern Division, five of the 15 schools contacted were secondary schools.
All schools received their copies and one even had excess copies of English textbooks.
Two schools in the maritime islands were now having extra classes in order to cover their syllabus.
Furthermore, most schools said they were not able to meet the directive by the ministry to complete all syllabuses in Term 2 because textbooks arrived late.
The last batch of distributions was done last month.
However, five of the primary schools received their batch after the external exams for Year 4, 6 and 8.
In the Northern Division, 10 schools were contacted and all primary schools reported receiving their textbook batches in Term 1 and 2.
However, a secondary school was without its maths textbook while another received all subject textbooks but were short in numbers.
To mitigate the delay in the distribution, it is understood some schools in the Central and Western divisions were given a directive to photocopy copies for its students.